


Silver & Pearls

by ladymelodrama



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon verse, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Missing Scenes, mothers, orphans and exiles, pretty hand jewelry, the journey of rings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2020-12-24 03:04:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21092348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladymelodrama/pseuds/ladymelodrama
Summary: Missing/extended scenes from 2x02, 4x10, 5x10, 6x01 and 8x04.





	1. The Things We Carry With Us

**Author's Note:**

> Jorah’s hand jewelry. Dany’s too. Mmm. Yes please.
> 
> This is Part 1 of 5 in my current study (*cough* obsession *cough*) of rings.
> 
> Shout out to all the usual suspects on Tumblr for tumbling down this rabbit hole with me :)

In the Red Waste, there was nothing but time. Time and rocks and sand and sun.

There was no place more appropriately named. With its squat, rocky cliffs, barren of all vegetation, its dry river beds, any hint of moisture lapped up by the greedy, blinding rays of hot sunlight, baking the earth, cracking it open like bread left in a brick oven to burn…

It was all wasteland as far as the eye could see. 

And for as many days as they walked, they might as well have been walking in circles. The landscape barely changed. Just more rocks and sand and sun.

Not even sand really, but dust. The dust of a crypt, blown up by stifling winds that would shrivel their lungs and bury them. Finally. Once the desert dried them out, their bones bleached white by the sun.

Under a tent of ragged fabric, pitched against the side of a sandstone cliff, Daenerys sat back against the red rocks, cross-legged in her Dothraki skins, trying to draw any sort of coolness from the sheer stone at her back. The stone’s roots must reach far underground—somewhere hidden, where the darkness might grant some relief, if she could only dig deep enough. 

She imagined the chill of underground rivers, the feel of bathing under the eerie luminescent light of underground caves—it was a pleasant fiction, but one breath of hot air from the desert melted the illusion away. Again. 

Up here in the wasteland, under the oppressive heat of midday, sweat beaded against her neck and rolled down between her breasts even when she didn’t move. Her hands were raw and chapped, lacking hydration. Her scalp itched under multiple sunburns, the cover of her silver hair no match against the constant glare of the desert sun.

She tried to pretend the breeze was soothing, imagining its origins on some high mountain peak, sweeping down from snowy ridges and shadowy forests, before rushing across the desert to the sea. 

It didn’t work. But she tried anyway.

With a sigh, her gaze wandered. She looked over at Ser Jorah, who had closed his eyes briefly. Was he imagining something similar? She knew he wasn’t sleeping. No one could sleep in this heat. He was sitting only a few feet away, one knee raised, the other leg stretched out in front of him. His yellow shirt was stained with sweat and red dust.

His hand brushed at a fly that buzzed too near, but slowly, half-heartedly. There was no escaping the flies, just as there was no escaping the heat. But her attention was captured by the fluid movement of his fingers and the glint of sunlight reflecting off the Dothraki beads on his wrist guard and the silver ring worn on his right hand. The raised design on the ring was intricate, made up of spiraling curves.

She wondered at it... 

With nothing but time and more time, she leaned forward, scooting a little closer to her knight while staying within the shade of their makeshift tent. His hand was now hovering on his knee, awaiting the return of that pesky fly. 

But it wasn’t a fly that landed on his skin next.

Without thinking, Daenerys reached out and took his hand. There was a weight to it that nearly demanded both of hers to lift it, at least here, where the sluggish heat seemed to make every action ten times harder. Her fingers curled lightly around his thumb and his smallest finger, casually bringing his hand to rest in her lap, for closer inspection of that ring.

Jorah’s eyes flickered open at her touch, but he didn’t resist. He allowed her his hand, to do what she wanted. With her silver head bent, her tangled, unwashed hair falling over her shoulders, she studied the many spirals. Her thumb traced the odd patterns, which seemed random and wild in places, deliberate in others. It was unlike any signet ring she’d ever seen, with no letter or sigil discernible. With the serpentine coils, she couldn’t help but be reminded of dragons. 

A tiny screech from one of her baby dragons, perched in their cage in the shade of the cliffside, only accentuated the connection.

But Jorah Mormont had this ring before he came into her brother’s service. Before the dragons. She remembers seeing it on his hand the day they met, the day her brother sold her to Khal Drogo. Everything about that day was seared in her memory and would be, until the day she died. She had been dressed in a pale lavender dress and the air smelled like salt and horses. 

She remembers the ring and the feel of Jorah’s hands as her fingers brushed by his briefly, as she took the books of songs and stories that he offered her as a wedding gift. The books came from Westeros. But what about the ring?

“Is this Dothraki?” she asked, curious. 

“No,” he answered, hoarsely. The lack of water strained their vocal chords and made his natural rasp go a little harsher. He swallowed, grimacing on the now familiar taste of dust while reaching for the nearby flask with his free hand, the one not within Daenerys’s grasp.

She spun the ring on his finger slowly, noting the thickness of the band, the smooth silver that bridged the underside, the way the designs faded away at the edges. The ring wasn’t pretty. Not exactly. It was too masculine to be pretty, and yet, she couldn’t call it ugly.

“Is it from Bear Island?”

“No, my princess,” Jorah answered, tipping back his head as he took a small drink. He had to turn the flask nearly upside down to gain a drop, which brought another grimace to his weathered features. He wet his lips and clarified, “Not originally.”

She knew she was taking liberties that perhaps she hadn’t earned, but her hand crawled beneath his, over the callused pads of fingers and the knuckles. With her wandering fingers, she lightly tugged, sliding the ring off his finger carefully, to where it dropped, with a muted thud, into her waiting palm. His hand lingered where she left it, balanced lightly against the inside of her thigh.

Daenerys turned the ring end over end, watching the metal catch sunlight.

“Where, then?” she wondered, as she slipped the ring on one of her own fingers and then another, attempting to find one that would fit. Her fingers swam in the midst of its large girth, as they were half the size of his. She put the ring on her thumb and she could still shake it off just by turning her hand towards the ground.

“I don’t know,” he licked his lips, already dry again, exhaling quietly. “Wherever my mother’s people were from, I suppose.”

“You don’t know where your mother was from?” her gaze jumped from silver metal to blue eyes, meeting his gaze with a measure of surprise.

He never talked about his mother. Or his father really. And then, only when she asked. She’d asked him to describe Bear Island to her as she tried to fall asleep the night before, holding on to the idea of crashing waterfalls, ice on the sea, frosted branches and the crunch of snow in a northern forest.

_Home_. He’d said, when she asked what he prayed for, echoing her own prayers.

And thinking of home—his, hers, and then a seaside villa that flickered in and out of focus—she finally fell asleep.

“No, but my mother didn’t know either,” he replied. “She was an orphan child, washed ashore in a basket when she was little more than a babe. That ring was in the basket with her, among a few other oddities.”

Jorah continued, in a tone heavily laced with regret and guilt and old pain, “I sold nearly everything of value in my father’s house before I fled from Westeros, trying to pay off my debts…but not that.”

Daenerys looked at the designs again, musing over their unknown origins.

His hand suddenly turned on her thigh, palm upwards, his first finger stretching up lazily to brush at her wrist. And then further, to take her hand and pass his thumb over the two white pearls on the twisted ring residing on her left hand.

“Now it’s your turn,” he said, taking his own liberties. But the desert forgave them all. He asked, softly, “Where did this come from?”

A sad smile graced her lips, but only briefly. She slipped the ring off her hand and handed it to him, where he held it up with two fingers, admiring the simplicity and the setting of the white stones. It looked like two petals of a lily set adrift on a silver stem.

“Ser Willem Darry gave it to me when I was four or five,” Daenerys replied, after a moment’s silence. “He said it was my mother’s.”

Ser Jorah nodded, having no reason to doubt it. Why should he? But Daenerys had her reservations, old ones, nagging ones, which she found herself sharing with him, despite having never shared them with anyone else. Ever. 

“I don’t know if it’s true,” she admitted, shaking her head slightly. She continued, not quite glumly, more like a recitation, “He might’ve been trying to make me feel better. It was my birthday. Viserys and I had quarreled over something, I don’t remember what it was—but he said that our mother had died because of me and then slammed the door on his way out of the house.”

She leaned over, lightly resting her hand on his, to finger those pearls with affection. She added, in a small, melancholy voice. “But it’s pretty, yes?”

“It’s lovely, _Khaleesi_,” Jorah answered, giving her a long look before releasing it back to her. “Much as I’m sure your mother was.”

“You never met her?” Daenerys knew the answer to that question. If he knew her mother, he would have mentioned it, knowing how desperate she was to know her family and her home, both lost to her long ago.

“I never had the pleasure. But they say she was beautiful and kind.”

“And unhappy?” Daenerys guessed. Viserys and Ser Willem had never said it outright, nor Illyrio Mopatis or any of the others, but the dark looks that were exchanged whenever Rhaella Targaryen was mentioned spoke volumes.

“Yes,” Jorah didn’t want to lie to her. He never wanted to lie to her again. “Very unhappy.”

“Perhaps she wanted to die,” Daenerys muttered, spinning both rings together now, side by side. She could almost nest them together, with the pearl ring fitting inside his silver one easily. Her gaze slowly left the rings in her hands, rising across the windswept plains before her, with rubble and dust cluttering the landscape from horizon to horizon. 

Her pitiful khalasar clung to the shades of the cliffs, barely moving, drying out as they waited for the sun to go down. She had sent the last horses in three directions. If the riders came back with bad news… 

Well, then, she hoped that red comet in the sky was merciful and might crash down on them from the heavens, if only to save them from starvation and a slow death beneath the hot sun.

Jorah roused himself at her words, her tone too hopeless to his ears. She wasn’t talking about her mother any longer.

“You will survive this,” he told her, confidently. 

“How do you know?” her words sounded faraway to her own ears. 

“Because I watched you walk out of the flames with three dragons, born of eggs that had turned to stone centuries ago,” he answered. His blue eyes sought her gaze, waiting until she looked up at him once again. He implored her to heed his words, “You didn’t burn then and you will not die now. I promise you, Daenerys.”

His strong words. His unwavering gaze. They never failed to give her the peace she so desperately wished for. That feeling of _home_, if only for a passing moment.

_You must be their strength._

_As you are mine._

She managed another smile, for his benefit—still small, but a little braver this time.

The riders would return. They _must_ return. If nothing else, the insistent sounds of baby dragons, with their little screeches and little coughs, demanded it. They hadn’t returned to the world just to go back to stone and dust.

They slipped into silence, except for the snare of cicadas and the buzzing of that same, persistent fly, back again. Jorah waved it away with another flick of his hand, the beads on his Dothraki bracelet dancing with the sudden motion. 

And when that hand came back down, Daenerys caught his fingers once more. She gave him back his ring, gently slipping it over the knuckle on the same finger that she’d taken it from, saying only, “Thank you, Jorah.”

“Of course, _Khaleesi_.”


	2. The Things We Can't Let Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made myself sad with this one. Mostly because I suddenly realized the intense parallels between Jorah + Rhaegal/Viserion in S4 and S8. All three banished in Season 4. All three dead in Season 8. Daenerys crying at the mouth of the catacombs. Daenerys crying over Jorah’s body. 
> 
> I’m. Hurt.
> 
> So anyway, here, be sad with me. <3

It was past midday and rays of white-gold sunlight filtered in through the high skylights of the throne room in the Great Pyramid of Meereen, illuminating shiny patches of bronze on the shields of the Unsullied, the gilded hilt of Ser Barristan’s sword and the specks of dust hovering over old stones. 

The light was resilient, even on stormy days, and had been making its way into the shadowed belly of that pyramid for centuries, watchful of all that transpired within the ancient halls, as master gave way to master.

And now a young woman with silver-blonde hair took her turn on the highest bench. Daenerys sat calmly, greeting her subjects with what she hoped were generous smiles, hoping to bury any lingering feelings of doubt or inadequacy beneath a mask of pure confidence.

_You are a Queen now. With all the titles to prove it. _

As Missandei rattled off those titles in all her many languages, Daenerys nearly believed it.

The supplications of the morning had been easy things—simple requests, honest blessings and offers of gifts. But now, her voice was strained and small against the massive space, as she attempted to convince the old man in front of her that selling himself back to his master would be a crime against his own soul. 

“I will die in obscurity and filth and all alone, Your Grace, if you do not allow me to do this,” he begged her.

“But you will die free,” she urged him to understand.

The old man listened to her patiently but would not yield. And, in the end, she was forced to concede—allowing him to contract with his former master for a year, no more. The old tutor was satisfied, for the present, but looked at her with pity as he took his leave, bowing formally, his parting expression far too transparent.

For all her lauded titles, the old man saw through her mask so easily. And she could read his thoughts plainly. He saw only idealism and the inexperience of youth.

She felt herself bristling at his unspoken judgment, her dragon’s wrath kindled ever so slightly. He was wrong to look at her like that. And she would assure him, she felt ancient. She had lived ten lives already—orphan, exile, slave and queen. She had seen much. And her youth did not change the immorality of slavery. She almost called him back to insist on it. 

But the day turned dark. It happened so suddenly. 

There was a shiver in the old halls, as a cloud must have passed the sun in the skies above, changing the play of shadows and light in the pyramid. And Daenerys found herself forgetting all about the old tutor, as a country peasant entered and took his place on the dais below, holding a ragged bundle, singed with black cinder.

_Bathed in fire and blood…_

He mumbled his entreaty in his own tongue, to which Daenerys nodded immediately, giving him leave to approach, a fear crawling up under her skin at the sight of that bundle. She couldn’t look away from it.

“I don’t understand. My Queen, I don’t understand,” he repeated, in a helpless tone, not comprehending the common tongue. His voice was haunted and breaking, even on the simple words.

“Come, you may approach,” Missandei translated for him, her own tone slipping, as this man was not like the others that had come before the Mother of Dragons this day. He had not come to flatter the Queen, nor beg her favor, nor ask for her intercession. 

Tears. Wretched tears were staining his red-rimmed eyes, turning his irises ink-black and utterly devoid of hope. His bundle seemed too heavy for his gaunt limbs, his shuffling feet barely managed the few steps to ask for Mhysa’s mercy. To ask her to explain… 

Daenerys swallowed hard, hiding the horror in her eyes only by attempting to keep her gaze fixed ahead, her mouth set in a firm line. 

Her posture remained strong, her back straight, hands quiet in her lap. And yet, her breathing might have given her away, as she found her throat closing up on sudden, terrible clarity. The man before her clutched a child’s blackened bones in that bundle, his voice catching on breathless, repressed cries, speaking in broken phrases that Missandei didn’t need to translate. 

They knew. They all knew.

“He came from the sky…,” Missandei related the man’s words slowly, her own voice going small on the revelation. She continued, avoiding Daenerys’s gaze as she confirmed, “The black one. He came down from the sky. And my daughter. My little girl…”

Cold dread filled her breast and Daenerys had a sudden impulse to flee. 

As the man knelt down before her and laid those bones at her feet, the feeling only grew stronger. She tried to think, she tried to speak, but found her voice betrayed her, staying silent as old stones and open graves.

The man’s child was dead. Gone forever. A small girl, likely playing in the fields with her father’s lambs, when Drogon swooped down and set the flock on fire, burning the girl with the sheep.

_Her_ child had done this. 

Daenerys found herself grasping at details that she couldn’t possibly know. The little girl’s name. The color of her eyes, the sound of her laughter…for a heady moment, she pictured a girl with silver-blonde hair and blue eyes. A crown of daisies in her little hands.

But then she imagined Drogon’s wings outstretched, his jaws open wide.

_They are dragons, Khaleesi. They will never be tamed._

Instinctively, Daenerys turned to her right side, her eyes seeking his blue ones. Seeking his counsel… 

But when she turned, she caught sight of an Unsullied spear and armor of a different sheen and color. Grey Worm was shorter than her bear by a few inches. Slighter of form, his stance beside her wholly different. She clenched her teeth together, the dread in her heart growing deeper, going colder. Her mind cluttered up with nonsense. And she felt ripped in two.

Ser Jorah was not there.

Ser Jorah would not stand beside her any longer.

Ser Jorah had _betrayed_ her. From the first. The thought made her blood run cold, as cold as those bones on the steps below her, laid out on the same spot. The same step where Jorah himself had knelt before her, falling to his knees, _begging_ her forgiveness only days before. 

_Please, Khaleesi…_

Grey Worm stared back at her, unsure why she looked to him. And Daenerys had to bite back the blind, mad rage that leapt to her tongue as she met her Unsullied commander’s quizzical gaze. He wavered slightly, waiting for her to speak. 

_How dare you stand there? How dare you take his place?_ She wanted to demand, playing at ignorance, spinning the clock back. To a time when she was warm, when the sunlight in the throne room didn’t feel so cold. So, so cold. The heat of Essos, stifling in the pyramid this time of day, could not cut through that cold.

_Go…now._

She brought her gaze back from Grey Worm’s quickly, angry at herself for the mistake. She should know better. She felt covered in pins and needles and her hands started to shake. She interlaced her fingers tightly in her lap so no one would notice. 

She resisted the impulse to close her eyes and bring Jorah’s face to mind. To stop and listen to his voice, still firmly in her head, despite his chilling absence.

_Forgive me, Khaleesi…_

But the muffled sobs of the shepherd, weeping over his child’s bones, chased away the phantom words, leaving her without anything at all. She could not comfort him. She could not explain.

_I do not understand, My Queen_

And Ser Jorah was not there to tell her how to make amends.

She forced herself to speak, finally, the words sounding so hollow to her own ears, so…small and worthless. She tried to keep her voice steady but she wasn’t fooling anyone, “Give this man gold in recompense, Ser Barristan. As much as he can carry.”

“Aye, Your Grace,” Ser Barristan promised. As if gold could bring that child back.

### 

Later, she cried. She couldn’t help herself. 

When she climbed up from the damp catacombs, Rhaegal and Viserion’s cries followed her. Her ankles felt weighed down by iron weights and she barely managed the steps. The dragons strained against their chains, attempting to follow her, crying out for her, pitiful, sad cries that asked what they’d done and why she would locked them in darkness.

She tried to be strong. But the tears were streaming down her cheeks as they rolled the stone over the entrance, sealing the two dragons in that dark, dank place.

_They are the only children I will ever have. No silver-blonde hair, no blue eyes. No daisy chains. Just scales and leather hide, do you understand? Strength and fire, blood and chains. This is all I deserve._

She couldn’t shake their cries, not even when she was far out of earshot. She wandered the lower chambers for some time by herself, clenching her hands together, wondering why they felt so empty. Wondering why they wouldn’t stop shaking.

If Jorah were here, he’d take her hands and tell her to be still. But Jorah was not here. Perhaps Daario Naharis could manage it, if she asked, if she told him what she needed. Or perhaps he would laugh at her foolishness and ask her what kind of queen allows a few bones to rattle her so fully.

When she finally returned to the inner sanctum of the pyramid, her tears had dried and she’d set her expression once more. It was all pretend but she had been pretending for days. 

Ever since she sent Ser Jorah away.

His voice. The dragon’s cries. They mixed together in her head, in a terrible madness. She almost asked Missandei if she could hear them too. But she knew the answer to that and she didn’t want to show weakness. She could not show weakness of any kind.

The only person she trusted with her weaknesses was gone. For good. 

Besides, Missandei was occupied with a merchant who had arrived late for an audience, but insisted on seeing the queen just the same. Missandei answered in the man’s tongue easily, the lilting syllables rolling off her talented tongue, but her voice held a sharpness of tone that caught Daenerys’s attention.

“Is there a problem?” Daenerys wondered.

“No, Your Grace,” Missandei replied, but then sighed. She had obviously been fending the man off for some time. “This man insists that you peruse his wares. He dares believe his trinkets and baubles might interest the Mother of Dragons.”

_The mother of murderers, you mean…_

She suppressed the thought. 

_You have a gentle heart, Khaleesi…_

She ignored that one too.

“Let me see,” Daenerys decided rashly, thinking that perhaps the distraction of the man’s jewelry would clear her head. Perhaps not. But she couldn’t think of denying anyone this evening. 

Her words brought a pleased smile to the jewelry merchant’s face, as his persistence had paid off. He bowed to her and opened his box of rings, chains and necklaces for her view. He held out the box, balanced on his forearms, keeping his eyes appropriately downcast. She took a step towards the gold and gemstones, silver and pearls, all blinking under the throne room’s torchlight.

Missandei clasped her hands at her waist, while Daenerys reached out, brushing her fingers over a bracelet of emeralds and a pin of sapphires, her fingers wandering over brass and silver and…

Daenerys blinked, astonished. Her eyes were caught by a unique design. Serpentine, foreign, strange. But familiar too. She brushed aside the glitter of gemstones to pluck the more simple ring from the merchant’s box, holding it up to the light.

She’d seen a ring much like this before. On Ser Jorah’s finger. The one he said had washed ashore on Bear Island, in the same basket that brought his mother to the pine and spruce forests of its wild shores. 

The band on this one was much smaller, a woman’s size. But it had the same design, the same odd swirls and patterns that reminded her of dragons.

That reminded her of Jorah.

She looked at it for a long time, her mind wandering to that day in the Red Waste, when they were dying, when she’d nearly given up. And how she slipped that ring off Jorah’s finger so impulsively. She remembered it wouldn’t fit on her own, sliding off her much smaller fingers.

This one fit. Nearly perfectly. Her mouth remained fixed in a straight line as she looked at it for a long moment. Long enough that the jewelry merchant cleared his throat, rousing her back to the present.

“I’ll take this one,” Daenerys stated, flatly.

“You honor me, Mother of Dragons,” the man bowed low.

Daenerys gave a quick nod to Missandei, who was looking at her curiously. “Pay the man, if you would, Missandei.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” the girl from Naath replied.

It was only after the merchant had retreated from the throne room, leaving the women to themselves, that Daenerys gave Missandei a longer glance, reading the translator’s intelligent features well enough.

Missandei had been with her since Astapor. She knew well enough what Ser Jorah wore on his right hand.

_Don’t ever betray me._ She told Missandei the night after he left. 

_Please…_she hadn’t added the word but she thought it, anger leaving her like a flame snuffed out, the sudden impulse to cry out for Jorah hitting her like the salt wind off the harbor.

But he was gone already. And she couldn’t take him back. She would never be able to take him back. Just like Rhaegal and Viserion, banished to the catacombs far below her feet.

Were they still crying, waiting for her to return and roll the stone away? Tears pricked at her eyes again but she refused to let them fall. She stared at the new ring on her finger. Stared at it until she could picture his blue eyes staring back at her.

_Everything ends, Khaleesi…_

“It’s a beautiful piece,” Missandei offered, seeing too much, knowing too much.

“No, it’s not,” Daenerys answered, bluntly, knowing that it would be judged plain against any other jewel in that merchant’s box. But she admitted, quietly, “But I couldn’t…”

She couldn’t finish, as any words she said would have betrayed her fully. The loss she felt, the connection she still craved. She was weak in this, she knew, and should throw the ring in the brazier and forget him.

_You lied to me, you spied on me. And yet, you loved me too. _

_I have loved you._ His voice did not waver. _I will love you still…_

Daenerys said no more and merely returned her hand to her side, the new ring already at home on her first finger. Missandei gave Daenerys a sympathetic half-smile, one that flickered to life and then secreted away, as she knew Daenerys could not afford to indulge in her feelings for more than this moment. For that way lay madness. And Missandei would not let her friend fall into despair and madness. Not while she lived. 

_You will see him again._ Missandei's dark eyes promised.

Nineteen—that’s how many languages Missandei said she knew. But that was a lie, Daenerys decided. Twenty was the true number.

And sweet silence was its name.


	3. The Home She Had Lost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m taking my time with updates on this one because it’s sooooo angsty and there’s really no good end since I’m following canon verse (why did I think this was a good subject again?) and 8x04 is still on the horizon. Staring at me. :’(
> 
> However, since I’m about to jump into the Jade Sea sequel (oh it’s happening and _soon_), here’s an update on this one before I forget. Xo

After escaping the blood-soaked sands of the fighting pits, Drogon flew Daenerys far from the city, finally landing on a grassy and wild mountain top in the highlands, setting down atop a graveyard of charred animal bones.

Drogon had been here before, many times. 

He landed clumsily and Daenerys found herself slipping off his scales, as the dragon soon twisted his head along his shoulders and belly, sniffing and licking at his many injuries. The Sons of the Harpy had come at him with gold masks and long spears, attempting to puncture his leathery hide.

He’d burned some of them alive. And others had glanced off the hard scales and spines. But others had found truer marks, and the dragon was nursing a number of wounds that put him in a foul, unhelpful mood. He was tired and cranky, after traveling however many miles with Daenerys on his back.

Drogon had come to his mother’s aid, and would do so again, but he was in no hurry to return to Meereen, settling amongst the dry bones and matted grass as if he might lie down and go to sleep for a long while.

“Drogon, we can’t stay here,” Daenerys told her dragon, once she saw his aim. She begged him to understand, “We have to go home.”

But the dragon wasn’t listening. He was battle-weary, he was injured, and he didn’t want to fly anymore. So when Daenerys attempted to climb on his back, he shifted and crawled away, knocking her off again, before laying down with his wings curled forward, his head resting upon them, intent on sleeping away all his aches and pains.

“We _have_ to go home,” Daenerys implored him, but it was a lost cause. 

The dragon had no interest in returning to Meereen. He was a wild thing anyway and preferred the sparse, high hills, where he could hunt and soar at his pleasure. Where no knives or spears were leveled against him. Where he was the undisputed master of his dominion and no one dared oppose him.

He didn’t understand his mother’s love of Meereen. He didn’t understand the words she spoke. That last one, in particular. And hearing it aloud, Daenerys realized she didn’t understand it either. 

_Home._

_Meereen isn’t my home._

_Where is your home then, Dany?_ Her brother, Viserys, was in her head. His voice, anyway. Never far away, ready to pounce on any self-doubts that might nag at the edge of her mind. Almost as if he were there, in the flesh, sitting up on one of the craggy rocks, taunting her with a sinister smile. _You should have stuck with me, little sister. I would have taken us home. _

_No, you never would have taken us home_, she answered the voice in her head with vehemence. She was insistent. _You were a shadow of a snake. You were no dragon._

_Like you, sweet sister? Oh, the mighty dragon queen. Chased away from her own city…_

Viserys and his voice were merely phantom-things. She knew that. But her confidence _had_ wavered and here, up on a lonely hill, lost in the wilds of the East, she found herself listening to it. If only to block out the hissing whispers that still buzzed in her ears. Those whispers that had preceded a host of gold-masked men rising up from the stone benches in the arena, with steel blades clutched in their hands, and murder in their villainous hearts.

_The spear, the shouts, the slaughter…_

_Always leading your people into the slaughterhouse, aren’t you?_ Viserys continued, taking pleasure in all her defeats. He still held his golden crown against her. _Daenerys Stormborm, Mother of Dragons? Mother of Folly, more like…_

Daenerys put her hands over her ears to drown out the voice, though she knew it was a fool’s errand. Her brother’s voice would remain with her until the day she died. And the silence of the lonely hills did little to drown it out. The mountain breeze blew at her ruined, stained clothes and her tangled hair, but it did nothing to chase away her thoughts.

So she tried to drown it out herself, interjecting with her own voice. The voice of memory.

_What do you pray for, Ser Jorah?_ She wanted to know. She _needed_ to know.

_Home_, he said, as if he knew its true meaning.

That word again. In _his_ voice this time. As if he stood nearby, just behind her. His hand on the hilt of his sword, ready to knock Viserys to the ground with it. And his other hand reaching out to take hers, even as the world crumbled around them. Oh, she wanted to rush into his arms and sink against his chest and just stay there. _Home…_

_Or love…_

_Love…love, love—how can you say that to me?_ More of her own words, recent ones, cast back at her through steely, violet eyes that wouldn’t meet her own. Why did she refuse to look at his face? His dear, pleading face. Why had she been so stubborn? Why did she not yield and speak to him alone, as he asked? To let him explain, to hear his reasons. 

_But then I would have forgiven you._

_Daenerys, please…_

_I couldn’t forgive you._

_Why?_

_Because there’s no strength in forgiveness. Because if I turn away from strength, I’m lost. _

_You are more than your strength, Khaleesi. You are gentle, you are kind…_

“I can’t stay here,” she murmured to herself, sure of nothing but this.

As Drogon slept, she wandered down the mountainside, her feet bending soft grass, her eyes drawn up to sloping hills and the deep blue skies above. She distracted herself with the landscape but her restless mind was faithless, attempting to play it all out again and again.

Jorah’s appearance in the fighting pits had rattled her. Her emotions unraveled as she clapped her hands together, signaling the beginning of the fight. She watched, her breath shallow as she wrangled with her feelings—rage at his stubbornness, fear at his death, horror at the end—as he threw that spear so strong and true. Her mind reeling on the sudden idea that he could…that he would…

_Did your love turn to hate, Ser?_

_If you think that could happen, then you don't know what this love is, Khaleesi._

But then, before she had time to consider it, there lay the would-be assassin in his gold mask, struck down by the force of Ser Jorah’s spear. Daario’s arms, thrown around her in a moment of protection, slid away, pulling his knife from his belt. They saw it then—Daario, Tyrion, the rest of them—the true danger that had grown like a weed in their midst. 

The crowd’s jeers and gasps quickly turning to screams. 

_Protect your Queen!_ Daario’s strained voice echoed sharply, as if it rebounded over the mountainside, over and over again.

But how could they protect her from such overwhelming hate? Such destruction and madness? Hizdahr zo Loraq was stabbed ten times as they dragged him off the master’s platform, only a few feet from her. Her blood turned cold as she watched her Unsullied cut down like wheat in a field. She was going to die, her white dress splattered with blood.

But then Jorah’s hand reached out for hers and she took it. And he led her away from danger, as he had done countless times before. Leading her to safety. Leading her...home?

_I will take his hand again._ She mused, making the decision in her head. Stubbornly. As stubborn as when she sent him away. Twice. _But this time I won’t let him go._

She was wrong to send him away. She knew that now. And Tyrion would likely have a lot to say on the matter but she didn’t care. She didn’t care at all. 

Everything went sideways after he left. And it twisted her path until she ended up here, wandering a lonely mountainside…

Alone, lost.

With a Dothraki scout on the ridge above.

She stopped short, all the jumbled thoughts in her head vanishing fast as she caught sight of the horse and his rider. She tensed, knowing that where one lingered, many would follow. And then she heard it. Felt it too.

The ground began to shake beneath her feet, grass shivering and pebbles jumping as a thousand horses crested the hill above. They would be on her in a minute, no more.

_Home. I just want to go home._ Daenerys begged the gods to grant her a little mercy.

_Home is the grave_, Viserys winked at her. _Join me in it, little sister._

_Home is where they turn on you_, Tyrion’s voice, speaking up in wine-soaked bitterness. 

_You will go home. I promise you._ Jorah’s voice, steady and lingering. His voice drowned out the rest, the less sure, the cruel.

He would come for her. He would find her. She had to believe it. He would return to her as he always did. He would never abandon her. Neither in Pentos or the Red Waste or Qarth or Slaver’s Bay. Not even when she sent him from her side. Never, he said.

_Never_. He promised. 

In the few moments before they overtook her, she slipped her mother’s ring from her finger and dropped it in the grass at her feet.


End file.
